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295: Krepling: How Two Teens Co-Founded a Shopify Competitor - with Liam Gerada

In 2018, two teenage brothers in Malta wanted to start an agency. They'd recently sold their Shopify store and decided that they wanted to help others running similar businesses. They spent a few months validating the idea but realized people didn't need an agency, they needed a better platform. So Liam and Travis set out to build a Shopify competitor. Neither of them was a developer, but Travis had taken some courses so knew just enough to start building something. After months of work, they shipped a product with a clunky backend and ugly user interface. But the product was free and they were still able to attract new users. But as soon as they started charging, every user they had churned The brothers pushed on and tried anything they could think of to find customers e.g. posting on sites like Quora and Reddit, sending cold emails, etc. Eventually, they were able to find a handful of customers. Fast forward to today, Liam is now 21 and Travis is 18. The two brothers have made significant improvements to their product. They now have over 500 customers. And they've raised a pre-seed round from Jason Calacanis' Launch accelerator. They still have a long way to go and a lot more work to do. But I think they've accomplished a lot in the last couple of years. They're both still pretty young, don't have tons of experience, didn't know how to code, and live on a small island in the Mediterranean. But that hasn't stopped them from building their SaaS business and finding customers. I hope you enjoy it.

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286: How to Create SaaS Buyer Personas and Produce Better Content - with Adrienne Barnes

Buyer personas are a great way to understand your customers and use those insights to improve every aspect of the customer experience from marketing, sales, product, and more. Unfortunately, most companies do a terrible job creating buyer personas or worse, don't have any. Those companies create buyer personas based on loose assumptions and anecdotal information. While these personas look nice, they often don't serve any useful purpose and are quickly forgotten about. If you create buyer personas this way, there's a huge risk that you're going to make the wrong investments in your product, marketing and sales, and waste a lot of time and money doing the wrong things. The key reason companies lack or have useless personas is that they don't talk to their customers. In this episode we examine how so many companies get buyer personas wrong. We lay out a better way to create your buyer personas, and we walk you through the process step-by-step. By the end of this interview, you'll have clarity and actionable insights you can take to create useful buyer personas which help create better content to attracts, converts and retains more customers. I hope you enjoy it.

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285: Paperform: How a Developer Bootstrapped a SaaS to $1.5M+ ARR - with Dean McPherson

It was 2016 and Dean was working as a developer in Sydney, Australia. After doing some work building online forms, he believed there was a gap in the market for a different type of form building product. As a developer, turning his idea into a minimum viable product (MVP) wasn't hard. But getting the word out about his product and finding customers was a whole different ballgame. He promoted his product on Betalist without much success But it did help to his product on AppSumo teams' radar, and he was invited to do a launch with them. After scrambling to get his MVP ready for the launch, we managed to land 3000 customers. But every AppSumo customer paid a one-time lifetime price - so he still had zero recurring revenue. But it did give him enough money to quit his job and work on the product full-time with this wife. They basically operated as a lifestyle business for a couple of years. Eventually, Dean realized that if he wanted the business to grow, he needed to think about it differently, start hiring a team and getting a lot more serious about marketing - something neither he nor wife knew much about. Today his company does over $1.5 million annual recurring revenue (ARR) and is still bootstrapped. In this interview, we talk about he's grown his idea into a 7-figure business, how he figured out how to differentiate his product in a crowded market, and how hiring his first employees was a scary decision but turned to be one of the best things he's done for his business. I hope you enjoy it.

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284: Hard Lessons on Finding SaaS Product/Market Fit - with Rohith Salim

In 2017, SpotDraft's three founders teamed up to launch their new startup. They saw an opportunity to streamline the end-to-end contract management process and believed they could solve that problem. Initially they built a product for freelancers and solopreneurs. But they quickly realized that most people in that market weren't willing to pay for a solution. So they decided to move upmarket and target Fortune 500 companies. But they didn't have the experience or credibility to win customers. Eventually, they struck a deal with a large reseller through which they got their first couple of customers. On paper, things were looking pretty good for them, and they were able to project out several million dollars in revenue from this one channel. But working with a reseller also created several new issues for the founders. They found themselves doing custom development work for each customer, which led to a higher onboarding and support overhead. But worst of all, they didn't own any direct relationships with customers - they were effectively a sub-contractor. It took the founders a long time to understand a fundamental lesson - as a SaaS business, you can't channel partner' your way to product/market fit. Eventually, the founders had to go back to drawing board, do a bunch of customer interviews and try to figure out a completely new plan. In this interview, we talk about how they went through that process, how they had to deal with losing some customers and revenue, and how they've been able to turn things around and start growing again with a more focused strategy.

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283: The Reality of Building a Slow Burn SaaS Business - with Michael Kansky

In 1997 Michael immigrated to the United States from Ukraine as a refugee. To help himself get a job, he signed up for a computer programming course. As a final project, he built a dating website. And people started using the site. At one point, he had around 1,000 users. When a user asked for an easier way to communicate with other users, Michael built a basic chat feature, which he also started using to support end users. In 2005, he realized there was a growing opportunity with live chat, so he took what he'd learned and launched a new product. But it was a complete hobby. Michael had no business plan or customers. But he loved building the product and seeing people use it. Eventually, in 2009 in started charging for his live chat product. About a third of his customers switched to a paid plan - which generated around $10K MRR. Today, Michael has bootstrapped his business to over $3 million ARR, but it took him 12 years to get there. And for the last 4 years, revenue has been flat. We often hear stories of entrepreneurs who launch a product, spend no money on marketing and hit their first million dollars almost overnight. But that's not the experience for the majority of SaaS founders. Michael's story is about the reality and the long hard slog that most founders have to go through to find success. In this interview we talk about the realities of building a SaaS business, the big lessons Michael's learned and what he's doing to start growing again. I hope you enjoy it.

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282: Bootstrapping a SaaS in a Market with Well-Funded Competitors - with Michael Cooney

In this episode, I talk to Michael Cooney is the co-founder of WhatConverts, a product that lets you track phone calls, web forms, and web chats, back to specific marketing campaigns so you know exactly where your best leads are coming from. When Michael was running a digital marketing agency, it was a real pain to track and report where leads were coming from. He partnered with a former employee to launch a new startup with a simple idea to track any form on any website, just by adding some tracking code. He showed the product to his agency clients who loved it. And it didn't take long to signup their first 5 customers for $30 a month. For the next 18 months, the two co-founders still had to work their day jobs and find time in the evenings and weekends for their new startup. During that time, they were able to keep growing and finding new customers. It looked like they'd be able to work full-time on their SaaS business soon. But their honeymoon period ended abruptly when new well-funded competitors entered the market and spent a ton of money on marketing. Michael's bootstrapped startup couldn't compete with those companies. They had to find another way to compete, differentiate and grow their business. Today, WhatConverts has about 1,000 customers and is doing over $2M ARR. The company is still bootstrapped and has grown 40% in the last 2 years. In this interview, we talk about how they've built their SaaS business, how they're competing with companies that have raised tens of millions of dollars in funding, and why they believe they can bootstrap their way to $10 million a year. I hope you enjoy it.

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281: How Vishal Sunak Took His SaaS From Zero to $10 Million ARR - with Vishal Sunak

In 2015, Vishal was working at Backupify which was about to get acquired. The acquiring company wanted to know what was in their customer agreements. But Backupify had thousands of different customer agreements. No one knew what was in them and there was no easy way to get that information. That first-hand experience of contract management and the pain points in-house legal teams face, planted a seed in Vishal's mind of a potential SaaS solution. Eventually, Vishal and his two co-founders (Chris Combs and Steve Travaglini) took the leap and launched their startup to revolutionize contract management. They built a Ruby on Rails MVP with no backend. In other words, it was good enough to use for demos but wasn't a product that customers could use. The founders then spent 9 months interviewing nearly a hundred general counsels. And it took them over a year to land their first few customers. Vishal was worried about building the wrong product and wasting their money. So they wanted to be sure they were solving the right problem. Today, LinkSquares does $10 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR), has a team of 70 people and has raised over $21 million in funding. I hope you enjoy it.

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280: Loomly: How We Grew Our SaaS to Over 7000 Customers - with Thibaud Clement

In 2015, Thibaud and his wife Noemie were running an advertising agency. They were working with clients in France and the US. But collaborating with them was time-consuming and inefficient. Nearly everything was done using spreadsheets. One day, Thibaud decided to build a software tool to make their lives easier. He was a self-taught Ruby on Rails developer, so he had enough knowledge to build something. The first version of what later became Loomly took Thibaud a few months to build. It didn't do much and was pretty basic. All people could do was upload an image, add text, and see a mock-up of what the post would look like on social media. But the tool helped them streamline how they collaborated with clients. And their clients loved the tool even though it didn't do much. So in 2016, they launched is as a product and 2 months later had their first paying customer. Today, Loomly generates north of $5M in annual recurring revenue (ARR) and is used by over 7000 marketing teams around the world. In this interview we talk about: - How Thibaud and Noemie turned their little tool into a multiple 7-figure SaaS business. - Why they charged for the product from day one - even though it had very limited functionality. - How they differentiate their product and try to stand out in a very crowded market - Why launching a referral program turned out to be a bad idea and what they learned from that - How they use quick feedback loops to quickly and continuously improve the product. I hope you enjoy it!

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Hi, this Omer, host of The SaaS Podcast.

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257: RevenueCat: Overcoming Self-Doubts as a First Time SaaS Founder - with Jacob Eiting

Jacob Eiting is the founder and CEO of RevenueCat, a SaaS platform that helps mobile apps to power in-app subscriptions. Jacob was working as a CTO for a mobile app company... It was a real pain for him and his team to enable in-app purchases and subscriptions. He thought it would be a great idea if someone could make it easier. But he did nothing with the idea for 2 years. Eventually, he left his job to build a solution himself. He started with a simple SDK and posted about it on Reddit. And he was torn apart by people who thought that he was trying to become an unnecessary middleman. But there were a few people who understood the pains and were interested in his solution. He focused on them. He improved his product and did a beta launch. He only had 5 people signup and created an account. It seemed like his idea was going nowhere. He wasn't generating any revenue and relying on his wife's job. He had a few months of runway left. But he didn't want to spend a lot of time improving the product if he didn't have customers guiding him. So he started writing content. He spent 6-12 hours a week writing and publishing a blog post. And he did this for a couple of months. He kept doubting himself. He didn't think he had what it took to turn this idea into a real business. Slowly, he started to see some SEO traffic trickle in. He finally got customers and was making $400 MRR. That gave me the encouragement to get more serious. By the end of that year, he'd grown his business to $7K MRR. He started thinking that maybe we could grow it to a 6-figure a year business. But the last couple of years have been huge. Jacob has grown his business to over $160K MRR ($2M ARR). In this interview, you'll learn how he's gone from struggling to find customers to building a multi-million dollar SaaS that's still growing fast every month. I hope you enjoy the interview.

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256: SaaStock: Global Events for SaaS Founders, Executives & Investors - with Alex Theuma

Alex Thuema is the founder of SaaStock, global conferences that bring together SaaS founders, executives, and investors. Alex had been working in sales for many years, but he longed to start his own business and work for himself. But he didn't have any 'great' business ideas. He was interested in what was happening in the SaaS space. So he started writing a blog about what he was learning. And he also launched a podcast. As he started to build a following, he realized that there was an opportunity to connect people. So he organized meetups in London for people interested in SaaS. He really enjoyed bringing people together, but he wasn't making any money. Several people told Alex that he should do a SaaS conference in Europe to bring together more people. But he'd heard many horror stories about people who had done conferences and large events. So initially he was reluctant but then decided to jump in and do what people were asking for. In 2016, his first event in Dublin attracted 700 attendees and launched his business. He had finally found a great idea for his own business. In the next 4 years, he ran SasStock events around the world every year. And now thousands were attending. But then the global pandemic hit and the event business he'd worked so hard to build came to a standstill. He had a simple choice - go out of business or find a way to pivot. He had to do some hard thinking and make tough decisions. In this interview, you'll learn how Alex has re-invented his business, what he's doing to rebuild, and why he's optimistic about future in-person events. Now I've tried to make this podcast a virus-free place. There are plenty of other places you hear about all that stuff. But it's hard to tell this story without talking about the pandemic. So I hope you'll forgive me. Enjoy the show!

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255: Trackier: How 3 Guys in India Bootstrapped a $2M SaaS Startup - with Udit Verma

Udit Verma is the co-founder, and CMO of Trackier, a SaaS performance marketing, and affiliate marketing platform. This is a story about 3 guys in India who were about to graduate from university. They'd started a web development company and they were building websites for clients as a side-project. They started talking about what they were going to do next and decided that instead of getting jobs, they were going to build their own software product. So after they graduated, they started their new company. Their first product idea didn't go anywhere. But as they talked to potential customers, they got an idea for a different product. They spent 9 months building that product and landed a handful of customers. But they didn't have a strategy or plan for growth. They didn't know how to find and acquire customers. They tried a few things like spending $150 on Adwords but got zero leads. Eventually, they decided to focus on inbound marketing. And they did something really simple - they wrote help docs which showed how to use particular features. And then they republished those same help docs as blogs. And they started reaching out to other websites and get them to also publish their content. Each blog post had a simple call to action - try our product. That simple idea and approach helped them to go from zero to $2M in annual recurring revenue in about 4 years. And on top of that, their business is 100% bootstrapped. In this interview, we dig into exactly what they did and how they've been able to bootstrap a multi-million dollar SaaS company. I hope you enjoy it.

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254: Hull: A SaaS Startup That Went from Failure to Successful Pivot - with Romain Dardour

Romain Dardour is the co-founder and CEO of Hull, a SaaS product that collects, unifies, and enriches your product, marketing, and sales data and synchronizes it to all of your tools. In 2011, Romain was running a marketing agency in Paris. He was working with movie studios that wanted him to rebuild online communities from scratch for every new movie launch. He realized that there was a more efficient way to solve that problem and decided to build a product. And for the next 4 years, he and his co-founders struggled to find product-market fit. In 2016, after trying to unsuccessfully bootstrap the business for 4-years, they decided that the market just wasn't there and that it was time to move on. They made the decision to shut down the company. Around the same time, Romain had lunch with a growth marketer friend who wasn't interested in the product but liked how they were collecting and segmenting data. He thought that would be something a lot of companies would be interested in. So in the next 5 days, Romain and his co-founders built a prototype and started getting feedback. And that's how the idea for their new product was born. They went from being a month away from shutting down their company to finding a new opportunity which they pounced on and pivoted the business. Today, they charge at least $1,000 a month for their product and have around 100 customers. They've raised $5M in funding and have found product-market fit. In this interview, we talk about how they struggled in the first few years, how they turned a lunch meeting into a new product idea, and how they've grown their business. I hope you enjoy it.

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253: Overcoming the Challenges of a Female-Founded SaaS Startup - with Rachel Liaw

Rachel Liaw is the co-founder and CEO of Fuse Inventory, a SaaS inventory planning solution that helps brands scale their supply chain. It was 2015, and Rachel had been working in the e-commerce space for a few years. She was continually struggling with inventory management. If you didn't manage inventory correctly, you either ended up with not enough product to fulfill customer demand or too much inventory that you couldn't sell. She realized that this wasn't a unique problem -- it was an industry-wide issue. When she started researching software solutions, all she found were outdated software products not designed for modern e-commerce businesses. And even worse, she realized that many companies were managing hundreds of millions of dollars worth of inventory every year in a spreadsheet. So in 2016, she and her co-founder Bridget quit their jobs and set out to build a modern SaaS solution for inventory management. In this interview, we talk about: - What the founders did when they realized that they'd been selling to the wrong type of customers who were going to churn, and accounted for about 50% of their revenue. - We explore how they've used cold-email as the primary marketing tactic to find and acquire customers. And we discuss how they managed to get a 20% response rate. - We discuss how difficult it was for them as two female founders to raise funding and how they kept hearing that they didn't have what it took to be successful. - We talk about Rachel's personal challenges, how she believed people who told her that he wasn't a natural leader, and how she overcame those challenges. It's a great story about a SaaS startup. But I think it's an even more interesting story about a female founder who's faced a ton of challenges and how she's overcome them and learned to believe in herself. I hope you enjoy it.

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252: 5 Steps to Nailing Your SaaS Product Positioning - with April Dunford

April Dunford is the founder of Ambient Strategy and author of "Obviously Awesome: How to Nail Product Positioning, so Customers Get it, Buy it, Love it." How clear are you on where your SaaS product fits in the marketplace? When you tell potential customers about your product (whether that's on your website, or in-person) do they get it? Do they understand where your product fits? And more importantly, are they clear about what makes your SaaS product unique, and do they understand how it's better than the alternative solutions? Positioning is what helps you get that clarity. And it's not just about writing a positioning statement. Creating your positioning is a process that your company needs to go through to figure out the best way to explain where your SaaS product fits in the marketplace and why your potential customers should choose you. In this episode, you're going to learn about the five components of effective positioning. We cover each of these in detail and identify critical questions that your company needs to answer. Once you understand these five components, you can pull them together to create the right positioning for your SaaS product - so your customers will also "get it, buy it and love it".

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251: A Guide to Product Led Growth for SaaS Founders - with Wes Bush

Wes Bush is the founder of Product Led Institute and author of the book Product Led Growth: How to Build a Product That Sells Itself'. Product-Led Growth (PLG) is a term coined by the VC firm Openview Venture Partners and is a growth-model that relies on the product as the main vehicle to acquire, activate, and retain customers. In this interview, you'll learn about the 3 tidal waves or trends that are forcing more and more SaaS companies to focus on product-led growth as the main growth driver. You'll learn the differences between a sales led' approach and a product-led' approach and we'll help you understand which one is right for your SaaS company. We talk about the pros and cons of using free trials versus a freemium model, and you'll learn how to pick the right one for your go-to-market strategy. And we'll teach you the MOAT framework, which will help you figure out the right marketing strategy, understand if you're in a red or blue ocean business, determine if a top-down or bottom acquisition strategy is right for you and how you can help showcase value to new users and customers as fast as possible. You'll also learn about the Bowling Alley framework and how it can help you improve your onboarding process. We cover a lot of content in this episode and I think you'll get some value and insights from this episode no matter what stage your SaaS business is currently at. I hope you enjoy it.

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250: Geckoboard: Failing a Dozen Times Before Finding Product Market Fit - with Paul Joyce

Paul Joyce is the founder and CEO of Geckoboard, a SaaS product that lets businesses build and display real-time dashboards to help them focus on the metrics that matter. Paul was working at a bank in England. He hated his job and longed to start his own business. But this isn't one of those stories where someone comes up with a great idea, quits their job the next day, and becomes an overnight success. Paul spent four years looking for the right idea. He tried and failed a dozen times. But his burning desire to work for himself, kept him going. And with each failure, he learned something. Eventually, in 2010 he came up with the idea for Geckoboard. He started building his MVP and also posted on Hacker News, which helped him build a waiting list of several hundred people. He launched his MVP a few months later but didn't get any paying customers. But he could sense from how enthusiastic people were, that there was something different about this idea. He decided that it was time for him to "go big or go home". So after talking to his wife, he used their savings to give him a five-month runway and quit his job to work on Geckoboard full-time. It was a huge leap of faith - but Paul's never looked back. Today, Geckoboard does well over $5 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR). The company has around 4,500 customers and a team of 40 people. In this interview, we talk about Paul's multiple failed attempts to start a SaaS company. We dig into why the idea for Geckoboard was different from all the other ideas he had. And we go into detail on how he found customers and eventually built a multi-million dollar SaaS business.

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